


Pain is Love

by Silvia_Blake



Series: Love in Four Parts [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Blood, Gen, Kink Meme, Matter of Life and Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 02:38:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4287555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvia_Blake/pseuds/Silvia_Blake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garrus's life has been a full one, but that hardly means pleasant. His love has led to pain, and betrayal, and grief, and yet he can't bring himself to stop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pain is Love

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this prompt on the ME kinkmeme, http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/6066.html?thread=27012786#t27012786, but doesn't actually answer it.

Garrus’s relationship with rubble had always been a trying one. Every single time he and it met, he would try to hide behind it for cover, and it always tried to kill him. It was a disturbing game of give and take, and this it seemed he had lost.

He knew from training and years of experience that when one’s breath wheezed it was a bad sign, which logically led to the idea that if every breath wheezed it was a bad sign. Another distressing wheeze fluttered weakly through his mandibles. He could just make out the whirl of dust and ash in the air, the murky light from the cracks above illuminating enough to illustrate his unfortunate situation.

Crushed. Trapped. Unable to get away. Unable to get up. Unable to get out. Unable to breathe.

Another wheeze, but this one was slightly wetter than the previous. Shit. He could taste the tang of blood at the back of his throat, but he ignored it. There was nothing he could do about it now. His survival instinct kicked in with a feeble twitch of his left arm, his right a useless lump of unsocketed flesh. The rock pinning his wrist didn’t even have the decency to jounce.

Fuck you too, he thought as he glanced around his rubble cave, fuck every last piece of you.

Everything had happened so quickly, he wasn’t sure how it all fit together.

He’d been setting charges. They were trying to lure one of the reaper’s close enough to blow the building and hopefully take out one of its legs. If not, they had the largest makeshift claymore Garrus had ever had the honor of making. He’d been done. There was shouting from below, an explosion and a sound, no, the sound, the sound of death and red and fire. Someone had screamed. Then…

Then?

He couldn’t remember what happened then, just the sound, and a lone, shrill scream in the dark. It was getting so hard to breathe.

Garrus shivered and bit back a scream of his own. He finally looked down at the piece of rebar sticking, blue and dripping, out his chest. He’d never hated an inanimate object with so much ferocity before. It was such a small thing, probably not even three centimeters in diameter, but it hurt. It hurt worse than being shot, worse than a rocket to the face, worse than betrayal.

He hurt.

And wasn’t that a perfect way to sum up his life. He hurt through everything, even the good things, even the best.

Urge to create turned to an ability to kill. One in a million fully paid scholarship to become a specter candidate turned to caring for a hurt mother. Fulfilling job turned to an endless circus of politics. Saving the Citadel turned to a best friend mocked and dead. Chance to make a real difference turned to a knife in the back. A friend returned turned to a vicious and forever painful deformity. Respect and honor turned to a burning world. A chance to fight back turned to a bar through the chest.

Everything had a price, and he always paid in pain.

Garrus gagged as blood, thick and hot, suddenly welled up and splattered from his mouth like a macabre fountain. He hacked and coughed, jostling his broken body, causing more pain and short breathed whimpers to escape him.

Something finally gave, whether literal or figurative he didn’t know and didn’t care, but tears streaked down his ash gray face, cleaning two awkward lines of vivid color in the dim world. A wet sob heaved forth, and it hurt, sweet spirits did it hurt, but it felt good too. All the pain, and the hurt, and the anger came forth one sob at a time, tasting of ash and fire and blood. His head swam, short breath only shortened by the exertion, but he wouldn’t have stopped it even if he could. It had been years since he’d last cried. Years since he’d had a chance to slow down and feel all of it, all the jagged and the rough and the sharp.

He hurt.

And he let it go.

Vision swimming, head spinning, Garrus felt himself go limp. Head hanging weakly he watched his tears drip off his mandibles and clean his blood painted armor. It was strangely beautiful. The gray-blue watered down into a thin mix that tracked over his thigh and onto the ground. A tiny plip the only evidence it hit the ground.

Turian blood spilled upon human soil. It was a strange to think that he might be the very first turian to have ever bled blue on Earth. Not that anyone would know, or that it would amount to anything, but it meant something more than just blood spilled to him. Never fully belonging to Palaven, his own homeworld, never fully belonging on the Citadel, his home away from home, but finding his place on the Normandy, the last, best hope for everyone. Finding a place for himself with unlikely friends, and even unlikelier family, but he had.

He was a bad Turian, maybe he should have been a human?

There had been an idea, strange, alien, but when he’d gotten Chakwas to explain it to him he’d liked it. Reincarnation, a try again until you get it right idea way of things. It appealed to his inner child, and his flagging sense of justice. He clearly hadn’t gotten it right this time, but maybe next time, in a different place, things could be better. He’d certainly paid with enough pain to get a level up.

It was so hard to breathe.

Everything had been ash and rubble-dust gray before, but as he took a look around something seemed off about the colors. He blinked and shook his head, regretting it the moment he did it. Black flowers bloomed in his vision and a sudden bout of nausea had him choking back things he didn’t want to think about. The burn of bile stung, but at least he didn’t feel like vomiting anymore. What he really felt like doing was resting. He was so tired, and he hurt all over.

Sleep…

Garrus could hear every single one of his instructors from basic, every med-tech and doctor he’d ever worked with screaming in unison not to sleep, to never, ever sleep if there was a potential for concussion, but what was the point? He’d already woken form being unconscious to a world he’d much rather leave, and if the silence outside was any indicator no one would be here for quite a while. Besides he only needed to rest his eyes. His eyelids had just gotten so heavy… everything was so heavy now-a-days.

He just needed…

to rest…

his…

eyes.

***

Light!

It was too bright. He groaned, low and weak, as he tried to turn himself away from the light pouring in. He just wanted to rest. He wanted to sleep.

He looked up as best he could, neck stiff and locked into its bent position. So much light, but there, something was different? Moving? Something was moving, a piece of rubble. That’s where the light was coming from.

A weak bell went off in his mind. This was important. He needed to pay attention, he needed to…

The smell of blood hit him, and a limp shudder rattled his bones. He looked down and saw a sea of blue. He was sitting in blue. Where had all of this come from? It was so beautiful. Fresh blue and old blue, so many different shades, but all of it was blue. His blue, his mother had called it as she looked into his eyes, Garrus blue, the color he’d had his markings done with.

Sudden voices broke his trance, the sound familiar. He knew that voice. Once more he tried to lift his head, but only managed to tilt it upwards before it became too heavy. So heavy.

More voices broke the silence until they were waves lapping at his ears. It was too hard to pick out each voice; all that mattered was that they were there. He wasn’t alone anymore, someone was there to take watch, he could sleep safe, they would protect him.

More and more voices, but every time he was just about to fall asleep again the same voice, the first voice, would rise above the rest. Rock and gravel and age old wisdom would crush his hopes of sleeping. Why? Why would his watcher betray him? The words never made sense; it was a mess of sounds he couldn’t make out, except his name. He could hear his name every time, clear, and harsh. A reprimand and warning in a word.

The light kept getting brighter until he knew it had to be false. The people had to be shining light. Why would they do that? It made it hard to sleep, but as his eyes caught the light on the blue, his mandibles fluttered in interest. The light and the blue with its curls of gray… They were making it even prettier for him. It made so much sense now.

They kept calling his name, but he didn’t care anymore. It was just a word, two syllables, nothing near interesting enough to gather his attention.

“Vakarian.”

His head jerked upward at the tone and the voice, the first voice, even as he cried out in pain. His neck was so tight, and he suddenly had the feeling that unless the world stopped spinning right now he was going to hurl.

Eyes screwed shut and mandibles tight, Garrus choked his nausea back a final time. If it happened again he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop.

“Vakarian, ookl ta em,” The voice rumbled.

Slowly this time, Garrus lifted his head centimeter by centimeter until he could just look up enough to make out the silhouette.

Red, no, closer to maroon, a red-maroon mountain and black, old and sure and everything he wasn’t. Paid with pain of its own, and played witness to his. He knew this mountain; it had a name, a name he knew. What was its name? Short, but steady as the rising and setting of the sun, as powerful and fierce as a storm.

“Vakarian, e’erw tingteg uyo otu, dan ‘sti igong uhrt,” The mountain rumbled as it lowered itself closer.

He shook his head, trying to explain in gagging words that he didn’t understand, that the words were nonsense and the light was too much, and that he just wanted to sleep. The mountain loomed closer, its red eyes taking up all of his vision. He tried again, knowing the sounds he was making weren’t words, but he had to make the mountain understand.

The mountain seemed to understand something, because when it spoke next it turned away.  
“Lohd no, er’seth methsoing unpcingtur ihs ehcst,” The mountain called back, voice rattling the rubble with its much mightier growl.

Garrus just barely stopped himself from swaying forward towards that voice, remembering the bar in his chest at the last second.

The bar in his chest…

The blue…

Garrus felt the moment higher brain functions kicked back in, because he almost didn’t hold back his scream.

Setting charges, the trap, finished, and then the warning from below, another reaper had dropped on them from out of nowhere, the team outside had tried to warn him. It had fired on them first because of the noise, and then its red eye had turned on him and that terrible sound had shaken the building just as it fired. The scream… He was the one that had screamed. The building had fallen, parts of it exploding around him as he’s tumbled with the rubble, and then blackness, and then wakefulness, and then blackness again.

Oh Spirits, it was his blood, he was sitting in a pool of his own blood, and he hurt. Everything, every air current, every touch of dust, absolutely everything hurt.

Red eyes whipped back around to him, and he stared back, wide-eyed and more frightened than he’d ever been. He was going to die here. He was going to die in the rubble of a building and a dead reaper, and he was going to die.

“Eh’s ickpaning,” A voice further back reported. “Hreat reat si pu nad ihs breingath si apird, oyu avhe ot caml ihm dnow herotsewi eh’s a aded nam.”

“Garrus!” Almost a bark, almost a shout, enough to get his mind to focus on what was in front of him either way. His name sounded wrong now that he could think, but it was still recognizable.

Red eyes bored into his as giant hands came up and began touching his head. His instinct was to flinch, but he couldn’t break eye contact, a captive to another stare. Finally there was a hiss, the sound of cracking glass, a pop, and his broken faceplate was being pulled away from his face. It took a moment for the sudden change to fully register, but once it did other things slid into place.

His visor flashed to life, half the screen cracked but the other half displaying mostly properly. It informed him his heart beat and breathing were in dangerous territory, and that several parts of it were broken, including the translator. It also brought up read outs for the man in front of him.

One finger gingerly tapped the side of his head and gestured back to red eyes. An exaggerated breath gusted the air around them, and they kept doing so until Garrus caught on. Breathe with me. He did his best; it was hard since the moment he realized how hard he was breathing he felt all his strength leave him. Exhausted, hurting, and terrified, his limbs began to feel cold.  
“Laghirt, aht’ts terteb. Nac oyu eekp ihm kiel atth?” The voice from before asked.

“Eyah.” The mountain replied as he kept staring into Garrus. “Vakarian, I eden oyu ot yats no em, ogt ti?

The words sounded so familiar, as if he’d heard them many time before, but it was like a dream. They made sense until he tried to catch their meaning, but he nodded, as little as he could, anyway. He was being asked something, important, and if he was going to die it wouldn’t be while failing. He could be relied upon one last time.

More people moved, but it didn’t matter anymore, the red eyes had him. He just needed to keep looking there, and he’d succeed. Just keep looking back, keep on them, and he’d be fine like so many times before. The mantra repeated in his head until it was all he could hear. Everything faded into the background, unimportant and meaningless to his mission.

Until the heat came.

Then he screamed, and thrashed, and fought with what little he had, because it burned. The bar in his chest burned, and it was too hot, too much, get out, get free!

Fighting, scuffles as bodies moved, he didn’t care, it hurt, it had to stop.

“ _WREX!_ ” He screamed, begging, even though he’d never begged once in his very painful life, for the pain to stop. He screamed, and shouted, and begged, and threatened, and cajoled, until his throat was raw and bile burned, and his chest was on fire.

Somewhere in the middle Wrex’s hand had come up to cup the back of his head, just below the fringe where the soft skin was, and hold his head down, pinning it to his shoulder. He’d rumbled throughout the tirade, never once stopping, and continued to even after Garrus went limp with exhaustion.

“I nokw, I nokw ti uhrts, utb ti ahs ot. E’erw ettingg oyu eref, oyu nac unchp em teral, utb gihrt onw oyu haev ot eb a oogd turian, nad asty listl. I nokw oyu kusc ta ahtt, ubt rty rof em.”

It was gibberish, but at least he was talking, which meant Garrus was hearing, which meant he wasn’t dead yet, as much as he wished he was in that moment. It still hurt, but it was a distant thing now, happening at him rather than to. It didn’t feel nice, or bad, or anything really, which was a relief in of itself. No more feeling, he was done feeling for a while.

More poking, prodding, and shoving of his body, but it didn’t matter because he had checked out. He watched, almost from a distance as the krogan that had been busy separating the rebar from the rubble with a torch quickly packed his wound around the rebar still in him. The krogan and Wrex lifted him carefully and put him onto a jerry-rigged stretcher.

There was a Kodiac not so far away if the noise was any indication, and more people digging through rubble, looking for more potential survivors. Wrex stayed with him though, first onto the Kodiac and helped settle his stretcher onto the floor of it. He slid the door shut and thumped his fist on the wall separating passengers from cockpit. Not a second later a jolt and vibration made Garrus whimper pathetically as the shuttle rose into the air.

Everything was getting dark again, and he had the biggest urge to close his eyes, just to rest them for a little bit. Just a little bit.

“Vakarian?” Wrex leaned over him, and for the first time ever Garrus saw what it looked like to be the focus of Urdnot Wrex’s worry. It made him look like a constipated pyjak.

Garrus laughed, or tried to, as his eyes slipped shut. Heh, he’d never tell the krogan what he just thought, he preferred to keep what was left of his face intact, not that it would matter for long.

Now to rest…

“Garrus!”

Just for a little bit…

“Garrus oyu opne oyur nadm yees!”

Just a little…


End file.
